Plays / Chronology / Icarus / More About Icarus ICARUS by Edwin Sanchez Did you hear the story on NPR about this guy from Athens who tried to touch the sun and died plunging into the sea? Although warned by his craftsman father to fly neither too high nor too low, this guy took off with his wings of feathers and beeswax, and, feeling he had the world at his wingtips, soared too close to the sun. His wings melted, he fell...and the rest is myth-tory. That’s right, this is Athens, Greece we’re talking, and, of course, the story of Icarus is one of their renowned myths. Playwright Eddie Sanchez heard this story on the radio, and was struck by "the arrogance of thinking you can touch the sun, and what happens when you take on an impossible task." His play Icarus, named after the heedless young boy, examines the lives of a motley crew who likewise attempt the impossible, not in Greece, but this time on an isolated New England beach. Altagracia and her brother, Primitivo, have big plans. Primitivo is in training, and Altagracia is his tireless, fearless promoter. Mr. Ellis, a former hospital janitor, is his fan club. And what are they promoting? Primitivo is going to become "the most beloved and famous swimmer, most beloved and famous person in the world." How? He will swim out and touch the sun. However, the unanticipated arrival of Beau, who also stakes his claim to the empty beach house, throws a wrench into their plans. He too attempts an impossible task—trying to forget his past. By retreating to this beach house, he had hopes of being completely alone and unattached by memories or relationships. The last thing Beau means to do is fall in love. The last thing Altagracia expects is that someone will fall in love with her. Believing herself to be unimaginably ugly, the queen of "all the ins and outs of non beauty," she is prepared to teach this masked Beau how to be ugly. Little did she realize she would teach him how to be beautiful. "Beauty gives us power. But what happens when the beauty fades?" asks Sanchez. This is a huge question for us living in a world where beauty is a major currency. This is no recent phenomenon. As Aristotle wrote over two millenia ago, "Beauty is a greater recommendation than any introduction." In Icarus, Sanchez shows that some things never change as a laughable, lovable movie legend-in-her-own-mind, "the Gloria," clings to this ticket of entry. She discovers, however, that her ticket has expired when she, as yesterday's blonde, is replaced by tomorrow's bombshell. The musician John Cage once questioned, "Where does beauty begin and where does it end?" To this, he answered, "Where it ends is where the artist begins." And so we find beauty in Sanchez s idiosyncratic love story as it charms, heartens, and surprises with its mythic proportions. He paints for us a landscape of emotional lives transformed by self-discovery—and he shows us that in dreaming the impossible, one need not always get burned. — Liz Engelman EDWIN SANCHEZ "I’m interested in writing about characters you wouldn’t necessarily want to have dinner with—characters you nevertheless understand by the end of the play," says playwright Edwin Sanchez. A newcomer to Actors, Sanchez explores the inherent complications of beauty and ugliness in his latest play, Icarus. "I’ve always been interested in the story of Beauty and the Beast—especially in what would happen if you flipped the roles." Sanchez’s lifelong obsession with false societal standards of beauty began in grade school, when he developed what he terms "the Crush of the Western World" on a girl who was attractive (to him, at least) in a very unconventional way. "We're so used to making snap judgments about someone based on their appearance...I like to imagine people in other circumstances. For example, if I see a large, intimidating man on the subway, I try to picture him sick or in love. What would he look like crying for love? What would I think of him then?" Originally an actor, Sanchez began writing plays as a way to see other characters on stage, characters he knew weren’t being represented. "Acting wasn’t very fulfilling," he said. "At the time there weren’t a lot of Hispanic roles. You were playing a drug dealer or a pimp or a criminal and that was it." He has written several successful plays. Clean received a grant from the Kennedy Center’s Fund for New American Plays and was nominated by the American Theatre Critics Association as Best New Play 1995, and Unmerciful Good Fortune won an AT&T On Stage New Play Award. His plays have been workshopped and produced at such prestigious theatres as Hartford Stage, Mark Taper Forum, and South Coast Repertory. A 1994 graduate of Yale School of Drama, Sanchez considers his years there an "eye-opening" experience: "I couldn’t afford to see theatre as a child, so I wasn’t exposed to a lot of it. I got to Yale, and there were so many different kinds of plays—it was daunting." Reading Medea for the first time at Yale, Sanchez recalls being almost shocked by the ending. "I was like, ‘Wow! She just killed her kids!’ and everyone was staring at me and saying, ‘Yeah?’ It was weird." Sanchez leads a quiet life, spending his days reading biographies, writing, or listening to Spanish love songs. "There’s enough drama in my plays," he explains. His solitary way of life complements his fascination with the communal nature of theatre. Even the way he begins a play is quiet and unassuming: "A character or two begin a conversation in my head. That’s it. I just write down what seems like a cocktail party in my brain. Eventually other characters show up and the play begins to take a shape." While sitting quietly in the darkness of the back rows and watching everyone scurry around, Sanchez can experience his favorite moment of rehearsal during the final days. "It’s amazing...these people are running around for something you put on paper a long time ago, a story on paper that’s brought them all together." Just knowing that he has created a new community, Sanchez implies, makes it all worthwhile. — Jenny Sandman